Gotopo’s Video for “Malembe” is a Glimpse Into the Syncretic Sacred Dance Music of the Future

In the video for her new single “Malembe,” Colombian artist Gotopo invites us to imagine a future in which pre-European contact religions and cultures of the Americas and ancient African cultures have produced a syncretic culture. The song’s polyrhythms and the production that expertly blends organic sounds with processed sounds and effected vocals take you out of your usual cultural context for a few minutes and brings you into a world you’d actually want to visit where the dance music is more adventurous in its palette of sounds and emotional colorings. The video shows what looks like a series of scenes that blur the line between a mystic ritual and an intimate dance club. By offering this complete vision of an alternative future, Gotopo has given us a science fiction story not unlike those of N. K. Jemisin that dare to suggest something far different and in many ways more believable than most of what we’ve come to expect from the art form. Watch the video for “Malembe” on YouTube and connect with Gotopo at the links below.